A review of injera baking technologies in Ethiopia: Challenges and gaps

Most of the people living in the Third World cook/bake food using biomass as their primary energy sources. There are a number of efforts undertaken to improve the efficiency, lessen the indoor air pollution and reduce emission of a three-stone-open-fire stove by introducing improved cooking stoves. The major purpose of this review is to organize, and document research and development efforts, showing gaps for researchers and developers working in the area of improved biomass and other stoves more specifically for baking injera. The information in the review, which is mostly in chronological order, is obtained from governmental and non-governmental reports, patents and journals written in the area of injera baking stoves. The most important results of the review show that a number of efforts were undertaken to improve injera baking stoves, though there were no organized reviews earlier to show the efforts made by various institutions. The review also shows that other alternative energy sources for injera baking stoves have been used to address the problem of the majority of the people living in rural areas. In the end, the review indicated a research direction for the future in relation to the supply of alternative energy sources such as solar, biogas, gasifier and electric power for injera baking stoves.